Friday, May 27, 2011

Cell phone use DOES increase the incidence of head cancers etc

W.E.E.P. News

Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News

27 May 2011

Cell phone use DOES increase the incidence of head cancers

Powerwatch believes that urgent action is needed to protect our children and young people from a epidemic of brain and other tumours in 10 to 30 years time. The majority of malignant gliomas (the most common type that has been associated with mobile phone use) are fatal within 3 to 5 years of diagnosis, even with treatment. If a large rise in incidence occurs then there is no way that we will have enough neurosurgeons or public money to treat them.

CHURCH leaders are turning to a higher power by putting wi-fi transmitters on their spires to speed up internet access for their congregation.

The Diocese of Norwich will allow its 652 towers to become wireless transmitters to give rural residents high-speed broadband access.

Worshippers of wi-fi will be able to log on in any church in the diocese to find out more about the historic building, while local businesses will pay a fee to use the signal themselves.

The church will share the subscription fee profits with local broadband provider Freeclix, but insists the Wispire project is about helping residents and visitors to the area, not making money.

David Broom, operations director for the diocese, said: "This is much-needed in rural areas because the signal is usually so poor."

The scheme will also allow churches to fit surveillance webcams to help fight a rising trend in theft of roof lead and vandalism.

Mr Broom said: "It's a really good way of protecting the rich heritage we've got in our many Grade One listed churches.

"People in the church, whether they are tourists, visitors or local community members, can use their laptops and mobile phones to access the internet inside the building."

It is thought 80 per cent of tourists in Norfolk will visit one of the county's churches.

Using their laptops or mobile phones, they would be able to access information about the building's history, its artefacts and local events.

Mr Broom added: "There is a lot of interest in our churches. We have got some real hidden gems. We hope to use these new wi-fi hotspots to share some of those stories." The church spires will act as "high-points" for Freeclix to send a signal from its data centre in old bank vaults in Norwich.

As well as creating a wi-fi hotspot at the church, the building will then be able to transmit that signal from the tower to nearby homes and businesses.

Mr Broom said: "Our focus in terms of the delivery of high-speed broadband is on the rural areas, where clearly the need is greatest, not only the residential but particularly the business side of these communities.

"It's businesses that are really suffering in these areas at the moment." Steve Batson, joint managing director of Freeclix, said homes and businesses up to 6.5km from the towers could benefit from the signal

He added: "It's all dependent on the surroundings, but there is a good chance we can get to most properties as long as they are not in the middle of a forest."

It is hoped all 652 churches in the diocese, which covers most of Norfolk as well as the Waveney area of Suffolk, could eventually be part of Wispire.

A faculty, the Church of England's equivalent of planning permission, could be granted for the project in the next few weeks. Mr Broom said the scheme was part of the Church's commitment to reinstate itself at the heart of communities.

He added: "We are not looking to have people sitting in them all day accessing the internet, but it is about using the church and having it as a hub for its community."

Customer prices for the service have yet to be worked out, but Mr Batson said they would be in keeping with services already on the market.

MALANG, Indonesia, May 26 (UPI) -- An official with an Indonesian telecom company says renting out space on mosque minarets for base transceiver station equipment is a "win-win prospect."

Eko Wahyu Nurhidayat, the local field operations manager for XL Axiata in Malang, said erecting BTS towers usually takes about nine months and involves obtaining several permits, but renting tower space at mosques allows the company to save on material costs as well as help the mosques financially, The Jakarta Globe reported Wednesday.

"Putting up a BTS is a service to users, but doing so while being able to help a mosque is even better," he said. "Renting out minarets to double as BTS towers is always a win-win prospect."

The practice has become common in Malang since Hutchison CP Telekom, which runs cellphone operator Three, became the first to rent out a Sabilillah Mosque minaret for BTS equipment in 2006

TIMEThe report, "The Potential Dangers of Electromagnetic Fields and Their Effect on the Environment," suggests that certain frequencies of electromagnetic fields "be they sourced from extremely low frequencies, power lines or certain high frequency waves ...

Kansas City StarKansas City police shut both directions of Interstate 435 south of the Missouri River about 1 pm this afternoon over concerns that a fire-damaged cellular phone tower could collapse. Kansas City fire officials also asked railroads to shut down their ...

Metro Canada - TorontoHavas says her issue is not with the CN Tower but with Health Canada's guidelines. She claims the Canadian standards monitoring electromagnetic radiation are outdated. "They are way out of line," says Havas. "They were set to protect military personnel ...

Canada's code not as tough as Toronto'sMetro Canada - TorontoThe Canadian Radiofrequency Energy Guidelines, known as Safety Code 6, set the electromagnetic radiation limit at 1 mW / cm2 for unlimited public exposure at a 1800 mHz frequency. Complicated math, this calculation means the Canadian limit is 10 ...

The dangers of Wi-Fi are real, reader writes

In James Burrett's recent letter regarding Wi-Fi in Peterborough schools, his comparison of the natural, mixed frequencies of the sun's rays to the man-made, pulsed waves of Wi-Fi is invalid: Wi-Fi waves are closest in frequency to those of cellphones, and scientific literature shows that cellphone use for 10 years or longer correlates with increased incidence of brain and salivary gland tumours. While a cellphone's signal is stronger, radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure is cumulative and irreversible, and a child's Wi-Fi exposure in school would be 1,100 hours a year.Mr. Burrett's statement that there is no evidence of cellular damage at the low frequencies used by radio waves is simply not true. Many hundreds of studies have identified non-thermal effects of RFR, and in fact, a Royal Society report prepared for Health Canada states "there are documented biological effects of RF fields even at low, non-thermal exposure levels, below Safety Code 6 exposure limits" and that these "could potentially be associated with adverse health effects." RFR is harmful. The only question is "how much is safe?" Because there is currently no conclusive answer to this question, the precautionary principle must be applied so as to safeguard the health of our children.Canada's Safety Code 6 is inadequate, and is hundreds, even thousands of times less protective than standards in Austria, Germany, China, Italy, and Russia. Many European countries are removing Wi-Fi from public buildings, and on May 12, the Council of Europe issued a statement urging governments to "take all reasonable measures to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields," including banning cellphones and Wi-Fi from schools.

No faith those meters are really 'smart'

B.C. Hydro's ad promoting the "smart meters" it plans to install in July claimed they will keep rates lower.

When the same meters were installed in California, the rates there increased.

In Ontario, they went up as much as 150 per cent.

B.C. Hydro also claimed the new meters would keep our information secure. Really? These meters will be communicating between homes and base stations by wireless technology. And wireless is notoriously easy to hack into.

In the U.S., personal data harvested by the microwave chip in the meters is called proprietary information by some utility companies and is being sold to marketing firms.

B.C. Hydro didn't claim that the meter is safe. And that's a point in its favour, because it isn't. There have been reports of fires started by these meters and illnesses because the meters emit electromagnetic radiation. The consequences of introducing these meters have been so dire that a number of communities in the U.S. and Canada have tried to opt out of the program, with mixed results.

The B.C. Hydro smart meter program is a billion-dollar boondoggle that is going to make a few insiders rich and leave the rest of us wondering who was responsible for doing the due diligence.

Here's what the BioInitiative Working Group of renowned scientists and public health policy experts say about exposure to radio frequency waves (RF).

"Wireless technologies which rely on RF to send emails and voice communication are thousands of times stronger than levels reported to cause sleep disorders, headaches, problems with memory and concentration and other adverse physical symptoms."

The European Environmental Agency decries technology and government's failure to apply the precautionary principle in the face of public and environmental hazards. Has Dr. Blatherwick ever heard of the precautionary principle? It means "at first you do no harm" and it should be the first concern of a medical practitioner.

We are told these meters radiate inconsequential microwaves. Nuclear scientist Daniel Hirsche disagrees in the video called Smart Meters 100X Radiation Exposure of a Cell Phone on the www.citizensforsafetechnology.org website.

By the way, these meters blanket our homes with radio frequency waves 24/7, monitoring every time we use an electrical device, then send this information a few times a day to BC Hydro. See "Expert Debunks 'Smart' Meter Craze" video on YouTube.

Blatherwick hasn't mentioned the cost. B.C. taxpayers will pay $1 billion for these meters and the savings over 20 years will recoup about half of that. Three thousand people who read the meters will lose their jobs. Who's benefiting?

WEEP News

by: Martin Weatherall

As a Canadian independent foundation, WEEP acts as an umbrella organization and focuses on progressive initiatives that bring increased awareness, policy change, and entrepreneurial activity around the issues of safe Electro Magnetic emissions.

WEEP News is a service provided by WEEP to keep those interested in and affected by Wireless, Electric, & Electromagnetic Pollution, informed on a daily basis, of all the current issues and initiatives in the world today.